Fiji's journalists should not be censored

Five years after the
military coup that brought you to power in Fiji, we note with concern the letter
to you by Human Rights Watch and other organizations that was issued Friday.
We would like to underscore their points on press freedom restrictions in Fiji.

In 2009, your government banned
any reporting critical of your regime and posted censors in newsrooms to ensure
compliance under emergency regulations. A Media Decree introduced in 2010
empowered a government-appointed tribunal to fine or imprison journalists for
reporting "against the national interest" or publishing stories without a
byline. The decree was announced as a replacement for the emergency
regulations, yet both are being enforced, according to local press freedom
groups and news reports--despite the fact that the emergency regulations were
initially introduced for only 30 days.

A clause in the decree enforcing local ownership of news
outlets was widely seen as targeting
the then-Australian-owned Fiji Times, the country's oldest newspaper and a
vocal critic of your failure to establish democratic rule since the military
coup in 2006, according to CPJ research. The newspaper complied with the ownership
requirements, and editor Netani Rika stepped down in October 2010, telling his colleagues
that his perceived anti-government stance was a threat to the paper, according
to the Australian
Associated Press news agency.

But harassment of the outlet has continued. Fiji Times journalist Felix Chaudhary
was detained for an hour in February and questioned about his reporting,
according to the local press freedom group Pacific Freedom Forum. The Times' new editor, Fred Wesley, told the group that the newspaper's website
was suspended this year because of its failure to meet the requirements of the
Media Decree. It went offline on April 18, according to the Forum.

Ambassador Peceli Vocea pledged to improve Fiji's human
rights record at the June 2010 United Nations Human Rights Council, Human
Rights Watch noted. We support their call for you to renew that public
commitment and to act on it by rescinding the emergency regulations and the
Media Decree. We urge you to allow Fiji's press corps to work uncensored and
the industry to self-regulate.